Optimization of protease production from surface-modified coffee pulp waste and corncobs using Bacillus sp. by SSF

The aim of the study was to identify new sources of substrate from agro-industrial waste for protease production using Bacillus sp., a local bacteria isolated from an agro-waste dumping site. The strain was identified as Bacillus sp. BT MASC 3 by 16S rRNA sequence followed by phylogenic analysis. Response surface methodology-based Box–Behnken design (BBD) was used to optimize the variables such as pH, incubation time, coffee pulp waste (CPW) and corncob (CC) substrate concentration. The BBD design showed a reasonable adjustment of the quadratic model with the experimental data. Statistics-based contour and 3-D plots were generated to evaluate the changes in the response surface and understand the relationship between the culture conditions and the enzyme yield. The maximum yield of protease production (920 U/mL) was achieved after 60 h of incubation with 3.0 g/L of CPW and 2.0 g/L of CC at pH 8 and temperature 37 °C in this study. The molecular mass of the purified enzyme was 46 kDa. The highest activity was obtained at 50 °C and pH 9 for the purified enzymes.